Miss Julia Meets Her Match (23 page)

My heart thudded in my chest. Catch the preacher red-handed once and for all, with my own eyes? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Then a smidgeon of reason intruded, as I had a sudden image of the kind of mess the church would be in if Emma Sue found the pastor with Norma. We’d never keep it off the six o’clock news.

Feeling obliged to offer a moderating comment, I said, “I’m not sure that’s the wisest course you could take, Emma Sue.”

“I
knew
you’d say something like that.” Emma Sue had to stop and cry some more. Then she got herself together and let me have it. “I don’t know why you won’t help me, Julia. You’ve been through this yourself, so you know how men can be, whether they’re ordained or not. Every other member of the church would take Larry’s side and think I’m crazy for even thinking such a thing. Julia, I tell you, I have only you and the Lord to lean on, and the Lord is leading me to save Larry from this perilous path he’s on.”

“Since you put it that way,” I murmured, “let me get some clothes on.”

As I threw on my clothes, I couldn’t help but wonder why Emma Sue was so frantic over the pastor’s possible waywardness when she, herself, had had eyes only for Curtis Maxwell ever since he’d hit town. But this was not the first time I’d marvelled over marital quagmires.

Feeling my way down the stairs in the dark, I got to the kitchen and turned on the light over the stove. I wrote a quick note for Lillian and Hazel Marie in case they arose before I got back, and put it beside the coffeepot. There was no easy way to explain what I was up to with Emma Sue, so I just wrote, “Out with a sick friend. Back soon,” and left it at that.

I slipped out the back door to wait for Emma Sue, who had insisted on driving even though I’d offered to pick her up. Seeing headlights down the street, I hurried to the curb, noting as I went that we’d had another rain shower earlier in the night. Water stood in puddles in the yard and glistened from the streetlight on the boxwoods.

When Emma Sue pulled up, I got in the car, saying, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I’d gotten a glimpse of her when I opened the car door, and, now by the glow of the dashboard, I had a better look at her. She was in a bad way, breathing hard as her hands gripped the steering wheel. She’d taken no pains with her appearance, which wasn’t unusual and entirely understandable given the time of night and the urgency of the mission. Her hair was standing out from her head, uncoiffed and unbrushed. There wasn’t a lick of makeup on her face, which I no longer expected, except if I’d been out looking for a husband holed up with another woman, I would’ve tried to level the playing field. She had on knee-high rubber boots and a gray raincoat. As she moved to apply the brakes at a stop sign, I caught my breath at a flash of pink nylon where the raincoat gaped open.

“Emma Sue,” I said, “what’ve you got on under that thing?”

“My nightgown,” she said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be riding around in one’s bedclothes. “You don’t take time to dress when the Lord tells you to get up and get going.”

Emma Sue’s complacent words and calm demeanor were not stacking up with the way she was driving. She swung the car here, there, and everywhere, taking the corners and curves with an abandon that made me cling to the armrest and press my feet against the floorboard. I sat firmly strapped in the passenger seat, going back and forth in my mind about the wisdom of this enterprise. In spite of my shameful hope that Pastor Ledbetter would be caught in the act—it would serve him right—I reminded myself that Norma was more likely to prefer a successful businessman than a middling preacher, if she had a choice. Which meant that Emma Sue wasn’t going to catch him, either red-handed or otherwise, but she was certainly going to embarrass herself in front of Norma.

“Um,” I began after an especially vicious swerve onto a strip mall-lined thoroughfare, “Emma Sue, I expect deputies patrol through here occasionally.”

“They won’t stop us,” she said with cool conviction, even as the tires squealed around another sharp turn. “The Lord is with us, Julia. You have to have faith. Let go and let God, I always say.”

“My word,” I gasped as I was slung against the door and my seat belt tightened up on me. “If that’s the case, why aren’t we home in bed?”

“I have to save Larry from himself,” she said, giving me a quick glance, as if I should’ve known that. “No,” she corrected herself, “I have to save him from Satan. That’s what’s going on here, Julia, we are wrestling against evil powers and principalities and wickedness in high places.” Then she raised one hand, balled it into a fist and smacked the steering wheel hard enough to crack one or the other. “In the form of
Norma Cantrell!
”

Then, breathing heavily, she gained a semblance of control and said, “Of course, I know she’s being used, too, and I pray for her daily. We must love our enemies, Julia, you know that as well as I do.”

I kept my peace, but believe me, I was offended at the lecturing tone she’d taken.
I
wasn’t the one chasing down an errant husband with fire in my eyes.

Spurting us through an intersection just as the light turned red, Emma Sue hunched over the wheel and said, “Now, Julia, you stay out of this. All I need you to do is be a witness. He’s not going to talk his way out of this one, I don’t care if he’s on his knees with her.”

My Lord, I thought, she is convinced that he really is making free with Norma. In that frame of mind, there was nothing I could say that would deter her. Only the lack of proof, in the form of no pastoral visit to Norma in the dead of night, was going to convince her otherwise. Still, I thought I should try.

“Emma Sue,” I ventured, “there’s something I have to ask. How does Curtis Maxwell fit into all this? If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand. It’s just that, well, there’s been some talk about your interest in him.”

She slammed on the brakes, jerking me against the seat belt, and came to a halt in the middle of the street. “Curtis Maxwell? How could you think such a thing! Julia, you know my marriage means more to me than anything in the world. Except the Lord, of course. And what do you mean, my
interest
in him? The only interest I have in Curtis Maxwell is gaining him as a member of the church. Besides, Larry said I should be nice to him, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I murmured, taken aback at her vociferous denial of any wrongdoing or thinking. I wasn’t sure that either Hazel Marie or I could’ve been so far off the mark in what we witnessed in her own living room, but now wasn’t the time to point it out.

“Oh, Julia,” Emma Sue said, suddenly beginning to sob as she leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, “I’ve been so wrong, you just don’t know. I admit I had lustful thoughts in my heart, but not the way you think. I did want Curtis to join the church, but more than that. I wanted him to be interested in
me.
To show Larry, don’t you see? To make Larry notice and see how Norma was turning his head. I was trying to bring him back into the fold. And now, this is my punishment.”

As she dissolved in a flood of tears, my heart went out to her for the pitiful attempt she’d made to re-attract her husband. I was glad I didn’t have one.

I patted her arm and mumbled, “Don’t cry, Emma Sue, I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

She jerked upright and wiped her face with the heels of her hands. “No, it won’t,” she said, with all her former conviction. “Because Larry wanted me to entertain Curtis, wanted me to make him feel welcome. And all the time I was trying to please my husband, my husband was keeping me busy so I wouldn’t find out what he was up to. That low-down, sorry excuse for a
Christian
husband, I’ll show him! He preaches Judgment Day. Well, this is Judgment Night for him!” And she stomped down on the gas pedal and we went streaking through the quiet streets.

We finally turned into the middle-class residential area on the far side of town where Norma lived. The houses were small, but well-kept in spite of their age. Light from the streetlamps pooled at each corner of the block, leaving the middle of the block where Norma’s house was in the shadows. Most of the residents were sensible enough to be in bed, but an occasional light in one or two houses spoke of restless sleepers or early risers. Oak trees lined the street, interspersed with a few evergreens where, years ago, residents had planted their Christmas trees. Bicycles and plastic tricycles were parked or overturned in many of the yards and driveways.

Emma Sue turned off the car lights as we approached Norma’s house, and cut across the street to glide up to the curb of the most immaculate house and yard on the block. The house—no more than a two-bedroom, one bath cottage, really—reflected Norma’s obsession with precision. The foundation plants were absolutely symmetrical, pruned just so, and small, flowering plants lined the walkway that led to the railed porch. If I’d had the time and the inclination to count, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find an equal number of flowers on each plant.

“We might as well go home, Emma Sue,” I said, as I surveyed the dark house. “I don’t see the pastor’s car anywhere, and no lights are on. Either he’s not here, or Norma’s in bed.”

“Maybe they’re both in bed,” she grated out, then calmed herself. “I didn’t really mean that. I don’t think Larry’d go that far, but he wouldn’t be brazen enough to park in front of her house, either. Now, Julia, you just wait here. I’ll leave the keys, just in case.”

“What’re you going to do?” I was feeling more and more edgy as she switched from pious utterances to explosive blasts of anger.

“I’m just going to knock on the door. Scripture tells me to turn the other cheek and give my coat to whoever needs it. But it doesn’t tell me to give my husband to whoever wants him. I can’t take this lying down, Julia. Larry’s in mortal danger. From Satan, you know.”

Well, actually, I didn’t. I certainly would never downplay any kind of danger from Satan but, for my money, it wasn’t the devil, but Emma Sue, that the pastor needed to fear. If he was there, which I was doubting more by the minute, in spite of having heard his—or somebody’s—gasps of pleasure when Norma was having her way with him in his office.

Emma Sue let off the brakes and eased the car down to block the driveway, then she rolled down her window and gazed at the dark house. “His car may be in the garage,” she explained. “And nobody’s leaving until I get through with them.”

She opened the car door and began to step out.

“Emma Sue . . . ,” I started, wanting to make one last effort to slow her down. I needn’t have bothered, for she was out of the car and headed across the yard to the front door.

“Well, Law,” I said aloud to myself, “I can’t just sit here.” So I got out and edged around to the front of the car, not only to be quick on my feet if things began to escalate, but also to hear better. Since I’d come this far, I didn’t want to miss anything.

Crouched by the front fender, I looked up and down the empty street, then back at Emma Sue as she stepped onto the porch. She stood there in the shadows for the longest time, ringing, I assumed, the doorbell. I couldn’t hear it, which meant the neighbors couldn’t, either, for which I was grateful since Emma Sue must’ve rung the daylights out of it.

Finally she gave up and walked out into the yard. I breathed a great sigh of relief, figuring she’d satisfied herself as to the absence and innocence of both the pastor and Norma. At least, as far as this particular house was concerned.

But no, while I watched, she turned and slipped around the side of the house, headed toward the back.

“Emma Sue!”
I called in a loud whisper. “Come back here!”

But she was gone, and all I could do was wait there on the dark street. I kept looking over my shoulder, for it all was so quiet that my nerves were about to jump out of my skin.

Then they did. I shrieked as the most ungodly racket commenced wailing and shrilling, and lights in Norma’s house began blinking off and on; every dog in the neighborhood went crazy, barking and howling and baying, and house lights up and down the street flicked on.

I left my post by the fender and ran into the yard, my only thought to grab Emma Sue and get out of there. I got to the middle of the yard, thought better of it and headed back to the car, thinking to make a fast getaway. But I couldn’t leave without her, so I headed back into the yard, yelling and waving my arms and dithering around. Not knowing what else to do, I flew back to the car again, all the time yelling my head off.

Then I saw her coming around the side of the house, arms chugging and rubber-shod feet pumping. Just then, the next-door neighbor yelled from his backyard, “What’s going on over there!” And then he cut loose with a shotgun blast that peppered his yard and Norma’s with leaves and twigs and a tire swing that bounced across the yard and out into the street.

I screamed bloody murder. “Don’t shoot! We’re leaving! Oh, my Lord, don’t shoot!”

Emma Sue was panting hard as she sprinted across the yard. I flung open the door on the driver’s side and stood back. She took a flying leap and went head first across the seat, as I tumbled in behind her. I swept her feet out of the way, and with trembling fingers, started the car.

And I did, grinding the ignition in my haste and stomping the gas pedal so hard that the tires screeched on the pavement.

“Hurry, hurry!” Emma Sue yelled. “Don’t turn on the lights, just get us out of here!”

We barreled down the dark street, houses lighting up as we passed, while that infernal wailing resounded behind us.

Emma Sue was on her knees by this time, looking out the back window. “Don’t stop!” she yelled. “Keep going! Step on it, Julia!”

“I am! I am!” I yelled back, the wind whistling through the open window. “Where’m I going? How do I get out of here?”